


winters frost

by Shamelessly_Radiant



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 15:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13527378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamelessly_Radiant/pseuds/Shamelessly_Radiant
Summary: Athos and Milady and Olivier and Anne and all the way their jagged edges do not fit together, and all the ways they are not the ones they used to be.





	winters frost

Every common sense you have tells you that you should hate her, hate her, but then every fiber of your being whispers that you love her. You cannot reconcile the way icicles fall from her mouth and bury themselves in your heart with the way your soul lit up and bloomed again when you discovered she lived still. In a blazing inferno you thought that you were in hell, but that she was there too, your Anne, so you could survive it. Only, it is _Milady_ now, but the way she smiles and kisses you is still the same. The way she is quick and shrewd and kills with words, is the same too.

Yet it ends like this: a white glove, and duty. You are no longer Comte Olivier de la Fère, so it makes sense for her to not be Anne. And if it were not for duty, you’d give the two of you the chance to become something else, to grow again together as you’ve grown apart, to fit into her jagged pieces again, and know her and accept her as you now know she is.

But Athos’ spine is lined and defined by duty, it coils itself in his bones and holds him upright. Olivier would’ve gone to England, but you are no longer him.

So you return to your post.

(the place against your breast is no longer empty- a white glove rests in the breast pocket of your uniform, always, and its presence accompanies you to war.)

.

The rope feels intimate and familiar around your neck, in a way it has no right to feel, but it fits nicely into the scars you got a lifetime ago, the time you died and were reborn as something else, as a creature of the night, a _murderous whore-_

Thomas was the first, and out of self-defence, but you no longer count your deaths (and deads) on your fingers as you once did, you no longer try to wash away the stains on your soul. This is hell, and nothing else awaits.

Still, you cannot keep yourself frozen to the core, and something starts thawing the moment you wrap fingers around a locket, an inferno burning around you. A piece of ice breaks, and your hand falters, and you keep being unable to kill him, and him you, and you thawn more and more, even with the Cardinal’s betrayal bitter on your tongue.

You allow yourself one last chance, one last hope, you get out of the carriage like a foolish love sick girl at the sound of hooves, but it is not him, and you knew it, that he would not come.

You will have to grow around your own sharp edges, than. You’d have preferred to have someone to guard your back, someone to keep you warm at night, but this will have to do.

A white glove is all you leave behind, white as snow, as the ice you feel slowly creeping back into your spine.

As winters frost dawns suddenly and unexpectedly, yet awaited, as it freezes over all the flowers that dared to hope for warmth, and only the death hollow trees survive.

The name you chose for yourself has yet to disappoint you. You think you’ll keep it around a bit longer.

(it is the only thing that seems to fit against your edges, and it also allows the hope to endure. The hope for some warmth to melt it away from you)


End file.
